no crime. But this they all refused, thinking it dishonourable to receive permission to punish a person who had been more than once publiely declared innocent by his judge: besides they considered with themselves, that the governor might afterwards have called it sedition, as the permission had been extorted from him. Accordingly they told him, that even though none of the things alledged against the prisoner were true, he had committed such a crime in the presence of the council itself, as by law deserved the most ignominious death. He had spoken blasphemy, calling himself the Son of God, a title which no mortal could assume without the highest degree of guilt: "We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God, a divine person."

Pilate's fear was increased when he heard that JESUS called himselfTMTM the Son of God: but knowing the obstinacy of the Jews in all matters of religion, he was afraid they would make a tumult in earnest; or, perhaps he was himself more afraid than ever to take away his life, because he sup posed it might be true. He doubtless remembered the miracles said to have been performed by JESUS, and therefore suspected that he really was the Son of God: for it is well known that the religion which the governor professed, directed him to acknowledge the existence of demigods and heroes, the Heathens believed, that their gods themselves sometimes appeared upon earth in the form of men, and conversed with them.

These kind of expressions induced Pilate to go again into the judgmenthall, and ask JESUS from what father he sprung, and from what country he came? But our blessed Saviour gave him no answer, lest the governor should reverse his sentence, and absolutely refuse to crucify him. Pilate marvelled greatly at this silence, and said unto JESUS, Why dost thou refuse to answer me? Thou canst not be ignorant that I am invested with absolute power, either to release or crucify thee. To which JESUS answered, I well know that thou art Cæsar's servant, and accountable to him for thy management. I forgive thee any injury, which, contrary to thy inelination, the popular fury constrains thee to do unto me. Thou hast not thy power from above, but from the emperor: for which cause the Jewish high priest, who hath put me into thy hands, and by pretending that I am Caesar's enemy, forces thee to condemn me; or if thou refusest, will accuse thee as negligent of the emperor's interest; he is more guilty than thee: "He that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin, being instigated thereto by malice.”

Hearing this sweet and modest answer, such an impression was thereby made on Pilate, that he went out to the people, and declared his intention of releasing JESUS, whether they gave their consent or not. Upon which the chief priests and rulers of Israel cried out," 1f thou let this man go, thou art not Cæsar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king, speaketh against Cæsar." If thou releasest the prisoner, who hath set himself up for a king, and endeavoured to raise a rebellion in the country, thou art unfaithful to the interest of the emperor thy master. This argument was weighty, and shook Pilate's resolution to the very basis: he was terrified at the thought of being accused to Tiberius, who in all affairs of government always suspected the worst, and punished the most minute crimes relative thereto, with death. The governor being thus constrained to yield contrary to his inclination, was very angry with the priests for stirring up the people to such a pitch of madness, and determined to affront them. He therefore brought JESUS out a second time into the pavement, wearing the purple robe and the crown of thorns; and, pointing to him, said, Behold your King;" ridiculing the national expectation of a Messiah, as their deliverer.

Stong to the quick, by this sarcastical expression, they cried out" Away with him, away with him, crucify him." To which Pilate answered, with the same mocking air," Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests an

swered, We have no king but Cæsar." Thus did they publicly renounce their hope of the Messiah, which the whole economy of their religion had been calculated to cherish: they also publicly acknowledged their subjec tion to the Romans; and, consequently, condemned themselves, when they afterwards rebelled against the emperor Vespasian, who, with his son Titus, destroyed their city and temple.

We may here observe that the great unwillingness of the governor to pass sentence of death upon JEsus, has something in it very remarkable. For from the character of Pilate, as drawn by the Roman historians themselves, he seems to have been far from possessing any true principle of virtue. To what then could it be owing, that so wicked a man should so steadily adhere to the cause of innocence, which he defended with uncommon bravery, and perhaps would never have abandoned it, had he not been forced by the threatenings of the chief priests and rulers of Israel? And when he did yield, and passed sentence upon our dear Redeemer, why did he still declare him innocent? This can certainly be attributed to no other cause than to the secret and powerful direction of the providence of the Almighty. who intended that at the same time his son was condemned and executed as a malefactor, his innocence should be made to appear in the most public manner and by the most authentic evidence ; even that of the judge himself. It was the power of the Almighty that set bounds to the inveterate malice and fury of the Jews, that would not suffer them to stain the innocence of the blessed JESUS, at the same time they deprived him of his life; but said to their boisterous malice, as he had before said to the foaming billows of the ocean, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed:" for none can stay his hand, or control his will.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

Jesus is led to Calvary: Simon the Syrenian, compelled to carry the Cross: He is crucified between two Malefactors: A Title is put upon the Cross by Pilate, and Lots cast for his garments: The Multitude, the Rulers, the Priests, and the Soldiers revile JESUS: The conversion of one of the Thieves: The great and unnatural Eclipse of the Sun Jesus speaks to his Friends from the Cross, cries," It is fin ́ished,” recommends his Spirit into the hands of his Father, and expires

O MY soul! come and follow thy Redeemer to the last scene of the most innocent and useful course that was ever passed on earth; follow him Lo Calvary's horrid eminence, to Calvary's fatal catastrophe, there fix thy most constant attention on that lovely, that sorrowful spectacle. Behold the spotless victim nailed to a tree and stabbed to the heart; hear him pour out prayers for his murderers, before he poured out his soul for transgressors; see the wounds that stream with forgiveness, and bleed balm for a distempered world. O! see the justice and goodness of the Almighty, his mercy and his vengeance; all his tremendous and gracious attributes manifested; manifested with inexpressible splendour, in the mos ignominious, and yet grandest of tarnsactions that ever the world beheld !

After sentence was pronounced against the blessed JESUS, the soldiers were ordered to prepare for his execution; a command which they readily obeyed, and after putting on him his own garments, led him away to

crucify him. It is not said that they took the crown of thorns from his temples; probably he died wearing it, that the title placed over his head might be the better understood by the spectators.

The ministers of Jewish malice we may suppose remitted none of the circumstances of affliction which were ever laid on persons condemned to be crucified. Accordingly, Jesus was obliged to walk on foot to the place of execution, bearing his cross; but the fatigue of the preceding night spent without sleep, the sufferings he had undergone in the garden; his having been hurried from place to place and obliged to stand the whole time of his trials; the want of food and the loss of blood he had sustained, and not his want of courage on this occasion made him faint under the burden of his cross. The soldiers seeing him unable to bear the weight, laid it on one Simon, a native of Cyrene, in Egypt, the father of Alexander and Rufus, well known among the first Christians, and forced him to bear it after the great Redeemer of mankind. The soldiers did not this, however, out of compassion to the suffering Jesus, but to prevent his dying with the fatigue, and by that means avoiding the punishment designed for him.

In this journey to Calvary our blessed Saviour was followed by an innumerable multitude of people, particularly of women, who lamented bitterly the severity of his sentence, and shewed all the tokens of sincere compassion and grief. Jesus, who always felt the woes of others more than he did his own, forgetting his distress at the very time when it lay heaviest upon him, turned himself about, and, with a benevolence and tenderness truly divine, said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For, behold, the days are coming in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us: and to the hills, Cover us. For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry ?" As if he had said, Dry up these tears ye daughters of Jerusalem, which ye shed in compassion to me, and reserve them for the deplorable fate of yourselves and your children; for the calamities that will soon fall on you and your offspring, are truly terrible, and call for the bitterest lamentation. In those days of vengeance you will passionately wish that you had not given birth to a generation, (whose wickedness has rendered them the objects of the wrath of the Almighty to such a degree as was never before experienced in the world. Then shall they wish to be crushed under the weight of enormous mountains, and concealed from their enemies in the bowels of the earth. The thoughts of these calamities afflict my soul far more than the feeling of my own sufferings: for if the Romans are permitted to inflict punishments on me who am innocent, how dreadful must the vengeance be which they shall inflict on a nation whose sins cry aloud to heaven, hastening the pace of divine judgments, and rendering the perpetrators as proper for judgment as dry wood is for flames of fire.

At the place of execution, which was called Golgotha, or the place of a skull, from the criminal bones which lay scattered there, some of our Redeemer's friends offered him a stupifying portion, to render him insensible of the ignominy and excruciating pain of his punishment; but as soon as he tasted the portion he refused to drink it, being determined to bear his sufferings, however sharp, not by intoxicating and stupifying himself, but by the strength of patience, fortitude, and faith.

Having therefore refused the portion, the soldiers began to execute their orders by stripping him quite naked, and in that condition began to fasten him to his cross. But while they were piercing his hands and his feet with nails, instead of crying out with the sharpness of the pain, he calmly, though severely prayed for them, and for all those who had any hand in his death; beseeching the Almighty to forgive them, and excusing them himself by the only circumstance that could alleviate their guilt; I mean,

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their ignorance. "Father," said the compassionate Redeemer of mankind, forgive them: for they know not what they do." This was infinite meekness and goodness, truly worthy of the only begotten Son of God; an example of forgiveness, which, though it can never be equalled by any, should be imitated by all, when suffering in a good cause.

Behold now the appointed soldiers dig the hole in which the cross was to be erected. The cross placed in the ground, and the blessed Jesus Fies on the bed of sorrows; they nail him to it; they erect it; his nerves crack; his blood distils; he hangs upon his wounds naked, a spectacle to heaven and earth. Thus was the only begotten Son of God, who came down from heaven to save the world, crucified by his own creatures; and, to render the ignominy still greater, placed between two thieves: "Hear, O heaven! O earth, earth, earth hear! The Lord hath nourished and brought op children, and they have rebelled against him;" by rejecting the only Saviour, and the God of all their mercies.

Crimes committed by malefactors were usually written on a white board with black, and placed over their heads on the cross. In conformity to this custom, Pilate wrote a title in the Hebrew, Greek & Latten languages, that all foreigners as well as natives, might be able to read it, and fastened it to the cross, over the head of Jesus; and the inscription was JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. But when the chief priests and elders had read this title they were greatly displeased; because, as it represented the crime for which JESUS was condemned, it insinuated that he had been acknowledged for the Messiah: besides, being placed over the head of one who was dying by the most infamous punishment, it Timplied that all who attempted to deliver the Jews, should perish in the same manner. The faith and hope of the nation, therefore, being thus publicly ridiculed, it is no wonder that the priests thought themselves highly Saffronted; and, accordingly came to Pilate begging that the writing might be altered; but as he had intended the affront in revenge of their forcing him to crucify Jesus, contrary both to his judgment and inclination, he refused to grant their request: What I have written," said he, “I have written ;" and persisted in his resolution not to alter the inscription...

The soldiers, having nailed the blessed Jesus to the cross, and erected sit, divided his garments amongst them; but his coat, or vesture, being awithout seam, woven from the top throughout, they agreed not to rend -it, but to cast lots for it, that the prediction of the prophet concerning the death and sufferings of the Messiah might be fulfilled: "They parted my garments amongst them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots." A sufficient indication that every circumstance of the death and passion of the Blessed Jesus was long before determined in the court of heaven; and accordingly, his being crucified between two malefactors was expressly foretold," And he was numbered with the transgressors."

When the common people, whom the vile priests had ineensed against the blessed Jesus, by the malicious falsehoods they had spread concerning him, and which they pretended to found on the deposition of witnesses, saw him hang in eo infamous a manner upon the cross, and reading the inscription that was placed over his head, they expressed their indignation against him by sarcastical expressions: "Ah, thou," said they, "that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days save thyself, and come down from the cross."

The multitude were not the only persons who mocked and derided the blessed Jesus, while he was suffering to obtain remission of the sins of all mankind. The rulers, who now imagined they had effectually destroyed his pretensions to the character of the Messiah, joined the populace in ridiculing him, and with a meanness of soul which many infamous wretches would have scorned, mocked him, even while he was struggling with the agonies of death: they scoffed at the miracles by which he demonstrated

Limself to be the Messiah, and promised to believe in him, on condition of his proving his pretensions by descending from the cross "He saved others," said they," himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Is Jael, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him," not knowing what they said.

Nothing could be more false and hypocritical than this pretension of the stiff-necked Jews; for they continued in their unbelief, notwithstanding they well knew that he raised himself from the dead; a much greater miracle than his coming down from the cross would have been, a miracle attested by witnesses whose veracity they could not call in question: it was told them by the soldiers whom they themselves placed at the sepulchre to watch the body, and who they were obliged to bribe largely to conceal the truth. It is therefore abundantly evident. that if the blessed Jesus had descended from the cross, the Jewish priests would have continued in their infidelity; and consequently that their declaration was made with no other intention than to insult the Redeemer of mankind, thinking it impossible for him now to escape out of their hands. The soldiers also joined in this general scene of moekery, “If thou be the King of the Jews," said they, 66 save thyself." If thou art the great Messiah expected by the Jews, descend from the cross by miracle, and deliver thyself from these excruciating torments, inflicted by thy enemies.

One of the thieves could not forbear mocking the great Lord of heaven & earth, though labouring bimself under the most racking pains, and strug gling with the agonies of death: but the other exercised a most extraordinary faith, at a time when our great Redeemer was deserted by his Father, mocked by men, and hanged upon the cross, as the most ignominious of malefactors. This Jewish criminal seems to have entertained a more ra tional and exalted notion of the Messiah's kingdom than even the disciples themselves; they expected nothing but a secular empire: he gave strong intimations of his having an idea of CHRIST's spiritual dominion; for at the very time when Jesus was dying on the cross, he begged to be remem bered by him when he came into his kingdom: “Lord," said he, member me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Nor did he make his request in vain the great Redeemer of mankind answered him, “Verily, I say unto thee, to day shalt thou be with me in paradise: Thereby evidencing the immediate happiness of the righteous after death.

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Let us now attentively consider the history of our blessed Saviour's passion, as it offers to our view events absolutely astonishing for when we remember the perfect innocence of our great Redeemer, the uncommon love he bore to the children of men, & the many kind & benevolent offices he did for the sons and daughters of affliction; when we reflect on the esteem in which he was held all along by the common people, how cheerfully they followed him to the remotest corners of the country, nay, even into the desolate retreats of the wilderness, and with what pleasure they listened to his discourse; when we consider these particulars, I say, we cannot help being astonished to find them at the conclusion, rushing all of a sudden into the opposite extremes, and every individual as it were, combined to treat him with the mest barbarous cruelty and insult.

Pilate having asked the people, if they desired to have JESUS released, his disciples, though they were very numerous and might have made a great appearance in his behalf, remained absolutely silent, as if they had been speechless or infatuated. The Roman soldiers, notwithstanding their general had declared him innocent, insulted him in the most inhuman manner; the Scribes and Pharisees ridiculed him; the common people, who had received him with Hosannas a few days before, wagged their heads at him as they passed by, and railed on him as a deceiver; nay, the very thief on the cross reviled him, in the midst of his sufferings.